Government Teams with Big Tech to Dox App Users

On the heels of reports of big tech teaming with the federal government to create a social credit system to determine citizens’ rights to own firearms, comes this chilling scenario.

The federal government has demanded that Google and Apple hand over the names, phone numbers, and other identifying information of over 10,000 users of a gun scope app named Obsidian 4.

The Obsidian 4 app allows gun owners to live stream, calibrate the scope, or take video with the use of their iPhone or Android device.

This is the first time big tech companies have been asked to release the information of so many thousands of American citizens in one sweep. The information is being requested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to stop the illegal export of a night vision scope manufactured by American Technologies Network Corp. It is inevitable that the information of thousands of innocent American citizens will end up in the hands of the feds. This is equivalent to a local police force obtaining search warrants for a whole town to find one drug dealer, and is a major invasion of law abiding citizens’ privacy.

This is just the first step in a slippery slope of the government invading citizens’ privacy in order to disarm the nation. Outlined in a Washington Post report last week, there are projects being considered by the Trump administration to use information gathered by Google, Amazon, and Apple to determine individuals who may exhibit violent behavior and limit their access to firearms. A new agency called the Health Advanced Research Projects Agency, or HARPA, would fall under the purview of the Health and Human Services Department. The director would be appointed by the President and would have its own budget.

The report states:

“HARPA would develop ‘breakthrough technologies with high specificity and sensitivity `for early diagnosis of neuropsychiatric violence,’ says a copy of the proposal. ‘A multi-modality solution, along with real-time data analytics, is needed to achieve such an accurate diagnosis.’ The document goes on to list a number of widely used technologies it suggests could be employed to help collect data, including Apple Watches, Fitbits, Amazon Echo and Google Home. The document also mentions “powerful tools” collected by health-care provide[ers] like fMRIs, tactography and image analysis.”

Essentially, American citizens will have opted in to allowing the government to surveil their every move with the use of these “home assistants.” But it doesn’t stop there. They would have access to your vitals via your fitness watches and your medical records from your healthcare providers, video of your movements within your homes via the cameras in the refrigerator or your mobile phone. The entire “internet of things” would be tasked with watching you, waiting to diagnose you. This would be a massive overreach by any government, but especially that in the “land of the free.”